


When Soul Meets Body

by ghiblitears



Category: Voltron: Legendary Defender
Genre: Gen, Injury Recovery, Season/Series 07, Snapshots
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-08-12
Updated: 2018-08-12
Packaged: 2019-06-26 09:44:24
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,260
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/15660681
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/ghiblitears/pseuds/ghiblitears
Summary: The Paladins wake after the final battle - alive, safe, and loved.





	When Soul Meets Body

When Hunk wakes, first of any of the paladins, he sees two faces; achingly familiar, looking down at him with pride and love.  
  
He’s pulled into an embrace before he’s even fully conscious. In the hazy aftermath of the fight it feels like a dream, but when his parents release him to settle him back in the bed (not his bunk in the Yellow Lion, he notices, but an actual bed) they don’t leave. They don’t fade away, the way they have in the nightmares he’d had in the weeks since they landed on Earth.  
  
They don’t go anywhere. They aren’t going anywhere, because they’re real and alive and safe.  
  
For the first time in years, reality is better than his dreams.  
  
“You’re back,” his mom says in a tear-filled voice. His parents’ hands cover one of his.  
  
“I’m home,” he manages before he’s pulled into another hug.

  
***

  
Pidge rouses in the early hours of the morning and meets darkness; her vision allowed only the muted lights coming off the room’s medical equipment. A soft, rhythmic beat pulses against her ears, broadcasts her heartbeat in the small space.  
  
In two chairs at one end of the room, her parents — both taken by sleep, and for once, maybe the first time since the war began, both at ease.  
  
In another chair, pulled from its designated spot and dragged next to where she lies, is a figure clad in grey and orange. His overlong hair falls past his slack face with abandon. His staff is propped next to the bed.  
  
Pidge had always teased Matt for being an ugly sleeper — mouth agape, limbs akimbo, a thin line of drool escaping him to puddle on whatever surface is readily available — the whole nine yards. She’d caught him facedown in his Garrison textbooks more than once, and has the photo evidence to prove it.  
  
In dawn’s first light, that ugly face is the most beautiful thing she’s ever seen.

  
***

  
Allura wakes to a series of soft, inquisitive squeaks and clicks; tiny voices prodding at the edges of consciousness, pulling at her tired mind with small hands. She opens sleep-dulled eyes to find her vision filled with the mice’s curious gazes. They’ve been watching and waiting, she understands, for quite some time.  
  
“Hello there,” she says, her voice heavy with exhaustion. After a battle like that, even existence is tiring — but she clings to wakefulness with every ounce of strength she still has. It’s all she can do for the time being.  
  
And then two hands clasp both of hers, one on each side, and two smiling Alteans welcome her back into the world of the living.

  
***

  
An armada of hushed voices sound off against Lance’s ears, blending with the ambient noises of what he recognizes as medical equipment until it becomes white noise.  
  
Lance is used to tuning things out — with so many family members occupying one household, he had to be. There was always someone yelling, always someone singing, always one or two kids yammering on and on about something or another. It wasn’t that he didn’t care; just that it was too much, too chaotic most of the time.  
  
This time he picks out each individual voice, every single whisper, every word spoken, before he cracks his eyes open to see them.  
  
Somehow his whole family has crammed themselves into his hospital room. If there was anything they were known for, it was tenacity.  
  
And loyalty.  
  
And love.  
  
Lance could wax poetic about his family for hours. Maybe he will, once this war is over.  
  
Then; “look, he’s awake!”.  
  
And a wave of love and gratitude crashes over him as they descend upon him, all at once, and he lies back and allows it to crest.

  
***

  
Light assaults Keith’s vision upon waking, cuts painfully into his already-aching head as he rises to consciousness. That would be a reality check in any other circumstance, something to keep him tethered to the present while the rest of the world spins around him. He can’t afford to let his mind wander — pain usually sharpens his focus and keeps him grounded.  
  
Not this time.  
  
This time, a gentle hand in his hair keeps him afloat. Keith blinks the light away to find Krolia at his bedside, smiling down on him with shining eyes.  
  
“You came back,” he whispers.  
  
Something is pressed into his hand, a familiar weight he curls each finger weakly around. The Marmoran knife glows faintly — thready and weak, but steadfast.  
  
“I had a promise to keep,” she replies. Her hand finds its way to his head again, avoids the bandaged parts to cup his cheek.  
  
He leans into her touch.  
  
“And a home to return to,” she adds, quieter, and suddenly everything in his world is a little more at ease.

  
***

  
Shiro makes visitation rounds as dutifully as any nurse. He doesn’t think it’s possible for him to be any prouder of the Paladins; they’ve accomplished things far beyond what humanity could even dream of, born out of tenacity and their determination to protect their own. Their strength is unmatched, their teamwork unparalleled. They’d faced the threat of extinction and pushed back all the way to their breaking point before they’d let themselves fall.  
  
Now, in the aftermath, they get to pick themselves back up.  
  
He spends time with Hunk and Shay, listens as Hunk tells her about the path they’ve journeyed since their first meeting, offered missing details and friendly jokes in between Hunk’s stories. Hearing him speak about their mission is like hearing a story for the first time, and despite knowing the outcome Shiro is still entranced.  
  
He occupies Pidge’s room when her parents leave to work with the Garrison. Their main downtime, when not spent playing Killbot Phantasm, is dedicated to giving Matt as many tiny braids as his shaggy hair will allow. Shiro suspects he let them do it to humour Pidge, since her hair isn’t long enough for it anymore, and Shiro’s techniques improve with time.  
  
Allura welcomes his presence and welcomes his updates from the Garrison even more, but as soon as business is out of the way they switch topics so he can answer any questions she has about Earth — and there are quite a few. What it used to be like, where Shiro grew up, about his old haunts in Arizona. The memories are painful, debilitating at times, but it hurts less to bring them to the surface. Allura, who’s lost her home once already, offers respite.  
  
Shiro learns the name of each and every member of Lance’s huge family, and rattles them off as fast as he can as an ongoing joke when he visits. He’s particularly a hit with Lance’s niece and nephew, thanks partly to his “cool robot arm” and for his ability to lift them both off the ground with one arm under Lance’s encouragement. He sees the light in Lance’s eyes when he interacts with his family and knows that even in some small way, they’ve won.  
  
He takes Keith to wander the hospital halls once he can stand upright, celebrates small victories alongside him when they make it down one hallway, then two, and then eventually the whole wing. Shiro knows that Keith hates to be trapped, and offers small freedoms where he can. When they aren’t out and about they stay in Keith’s hospital room and talk, linger peacefully in the spaces between conversation.  
  
After a lifetime of war in space, the rest feels earned. If anyone on Earth deserves it, Shiro thinks, it should be them.

**Author's Note:**

> That scene at the end of episode 13 just got me so good, I had to write something. <3
> 
> hmu on tumblr @ babykeithsmullet


End file.
